Using stable, reliable systems for mission-critical video walls

To continue to expand market share, Advantech and Matrox are partnering to launch a series of video wall controllers designed for and validated with Matrox’s Mura MPX graphics cards. These will be called Advantech Video Server (AVS) series products, and will aim to enable OEMs and system integrators to create video wall solutions for various markets such as digital signage, process and system control rooms, and security and surveillance monitoring, just to name a few.

Under this cooperative scheme, video wall system integrators who buy AVS products need not worry about issues of compatibility with Mura MPX; the AVS products have been certified compatible by the Matrox laboratory. In addition to the product itself, Advantech also offers premium system integration, technical support and logistics services through its worldwide service centers. With these benefits, system integrators can reduce costs and focus on activities that maximize their add-on value.

The Mura MPX series, featuring the Gen 2.0 PCI Express x16 connection interface, provides up to four inputs and four outputs on a single card that can capture a variety of input sources then scale, rotate, position and display them across the video wall matrix in real-time. Video source feeds may include both digital and analog signals from surveillance cameras, satellite and cable TV set-top boxes, computers, Blu-ray players, and so on. Users can configure the video display wall with flexibility, opening one or multiple sessions on each display or spanning a single spreadsheet across several monitors—depending on the focus requirements of any given situation.

Matrox PowerDesk software allows for flexible configuration of video wall layouts that can respond to situational awareness. With friendly graphics user interface, the operator can easily display just a few sources of more situational significance and enlarge any of the images to be shown across a number of monitors, and minimize it in the next moment, or move images from here to there across the entire visual canvas. Moreover, when using projectors as display devices, the PowerDesk edge-overlap feature allows the user to easily and intuitively adjust the number of overlapping pixels between edge-blending projectors to create a seamless, unified image.

Advantech has developed a series of AVS products with a variety of PCIe expansions ranging from two slots to more than ten slots. For example, the AVS-290 with two PCIe x16 slots can support two Mura MPX cards, allowing for a maximum of eight video source inputs and display outputs corresponding to eight monitors. To further illustrate this with a practical factory control room scenario, two of the inputs could be connected to a surveillance system NVR machine, two connected to operator workstations running production management software, and the other four connected to those running SCADA software. All information can be immediately displayed on the video wall.

Another case of using 24/7 Surveillance for improving highway tunnel security is another interesting example, let us know video wall can do more than we thought before.

"A large system integrator customer in China submitted a bid for a highway tunnel surveillance control room project which comprised of a video surveillance system, an emergency operations system, a vehicle recognition system, and a traffic management system. And crucially at the center, a video wall was needed in the main control room that was able to display all data and video coming from these systems in real time, with advanced warning capabilities that could draw an operators'attention to the most critical images."